talent acquisition

Do you remember where you were when you first heard of DNA? For me, it was watching the highly televised OJ Simpson trial. What am amazing scientific breakthrough, the ability to unequivocally determine a match based on the very essence of who you are.

Your company has DNA too. Sometimes referred to as “personality” or “culture”, company DNA is the life blood of your organization. It is more than “Wacky Tie Friday” or a ping-pong table in the break room. A candidate’s potential cultural match is inborn, it cannot be a learned trait – they either have it or they don’t: it’s in their DNA.

But why is finding a match important? You’ve taken the time to sit down and meticulously define your core values along with the vision and mission of your company. Now as you grow, you need to make sure you’re hiring people who share those beliefs. Candidates who are technical fits CAN do the job but candidates who are cultural fits as well will enjoy the job they do – and that means they’ll stick around because they believe in what they’re doing.

Humanity has always relied on our ability to make snap judgments of strangers so we could survive, otherwise there was always the chance of being caught unawares by a dangerous rival warrior masquerading as a peaceful trader. I haven’t heard of any recent Maryland tribal wars, but in hiring, we’re still stuck with the need to make snap judgments about people we don’t know particularly well. People-evaluation is a task prone to pitfalls. We trust our instant assessments of candidates, yet research shows we are too often prone to error. And it’s far too easy to fall into crocodile-infested waters by making the wrong judgment call.

When interviewing, hiring executives usually place huge emphasis on a candidate’s track record of achievement. But they often overlook the context of that achievement. In Why Unqualified Candidates Get Hired Anyway, article writer Anna Secino paints a picture of “businesses repeatedly promoting or hiring less-qualified managers…